Around the World in 80 Days

Around the World in 80 Days is the book that Michael Palin wrote to accompany the BBC TV program Around the World in 80 Days. This trip was intended to follow in the footsteps of the (fictitious) Phileas Fogg in the Jules Verne book Around the World in Eighty Days. The use of aeroplanes was not allowed, a self-imposed restriction. Steam liners don't exist anymore, so all of the long sea journeys had to be on container ships or freighters. The one... more

Around the World in 80 Days is the book that Michael Palin wrote to accompany the BBC TV program Around the World in 80 Days. This trip was intended to follow in the footsteps of the (fictitious) Phileas Fogg in the Jules Verne book Around the World in Eighty Days. The use of aeroplanes was not allowed, a self-imposed restriction. Steam liners don't exist anymore, so all of the long sea journeys had to be on container ships or freighters. The one exception was the trip from Dubai to Mumbai (Bombay) on a dhow, a high point of the trip. This book, like the other books that Michael Palin wrote following each of his seven trips for the BBC, consists both of his text and of many photographs to illustrate the trip. Unlike the following books, in which the pictures were taken (almost) exclusively by Basil Pao, the pictures in this book are from many sources. (Basil Pao did provide the pictures for the Hong Kong to Shanghai stretch.) To some extent the book reads like a diary, as Michael... less